"Especially when he learns that she is a princess!" said she, her voice so cold and repellent that his eyes closed, involuntarily, as if an unexpected horror had come before them. "You must not tell me that you came to see me.
"But I did come to see you and not Her Royal Highness the Princess Yetive of Graustark stark. How was I to know?" he cried impulsively.
"But you are no longer ignorant," she said, looking from the window.
"I thought you said you were a mere woman!"
"I am--and that is the trouble!" she said, slowly turning her eyes back to him. Then she abruptly sank to the window seat near his head. "That is the trouble, I say. A woman is a woman, although she be a princess. Don't you understand why you must not say such things to me?"
"Because you are a princess," he said, bitterly.
"No; because I am a woman. As a woman I want to hear them, as, a princess I cannot. Now, have I made you understand? Have I been bold enough?" Her face was burning.
"You--you don't mean that you--" he half whispered, drawing himself toward her, his face glowing.
"Ach! What have I said?"
"You have said enough to drive me mad with desire for more," he cried, seizing her hand, which she withdrew instantly, rising to her feet.
"I have only said that I wanted to hear you say you had come to see me. Is not that something for a woman's vanity to value? I am sorry you have presumed to misunderstand me." She was cold again, but he was not to be baffled.
"Then be a woman and forget that you are a princess until I tell you why I came," he cried.
"I cannot! I mean, I will not listen to you," she said, glancing about helplessly, yet standing still within the danger circle.
"I came because I have thought of you and dreamed of you since the day you sailed from New York. God, can I ever forget that day!"
"Please do not recall--" she began, blushing and turning to the window.
"The kiss you threw to me? Were you a princess then?" She did not answer, and he paused for a moment, a thought striking him which at first he did not dare to voice. Then he blurted it out. "If you do not want to hear me say these things, why do you stand there?"
"Oh," she faltered.
"Don't leave me now. I want to say what I came over here to say, and then you can go back to your throne and your royal reserve, and I can go back to the land from which you drew me. I came because I love you. Is not that enough to drag a man to the end of the world? I came to marry you if I could, for you were Miss Guggenslocker to me. Then you were within my reach, but not now! I can only love a princess!" He stopped because she had dropped to the couch beside him, her serious face turned appealingly to his, her fingers clasping his hands fiercely.